Digital modelling for conservation: Managing the Old Great North Road Cultural Landscape for climate-wise resilience

The Old Great North Road (OGNR) is a national and world-heritage-listed cultural landscape which combines a rare amalgam of qualities—natural beauty and biodiversity, monumental sandstone structures, convict and colonial histories and narratives, Aboriginal histories and cultural places—all entwined in a trail which visitors can experience as a road to the past. The aim of this project is to develop a digitally captured site and multilayered database of the OGNR for its enhanced understanding, promotion, participation, conservation and climate-wise resilience and adaptation. The project will engage a holistic data collection and analysis practice that includes aerial mapping, detailed and precise 3D laser scans, hydrological modelling and the complete capture of character-defining elements and bushfire damaged areas. The outcome of this work will deliver and represent the cornerstone information serving for its conservation, ensuring a posterity record in case of natural hazards, thunderstorm, flooding, bushfires and destructions and guide the decision-making process at all levels by NPWS, heritage authorities, specialists and the community, as well as to present historical knowledge and values of its resources. Such a rigorous, digital documentation will serve a broader purpose, as it will record change over time, as well as serve as an educational tool for the public good that will enhance the effectiveness of heritage management approaches and community awareness and engagement.